‘scuse me while I dust this blog thing off…

Day five of April.

Today I went to the court house to answer the call of duty. Jury duty. The weather was nice and clear, with a slight breeze, the kind that feels good even as it makes you pedal a little harder to get where you’re going. It was the kind of weather that told nothing of the ominous events that would follow.

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As an act of civil disobedience, some cyclists in NYC have remarked a bike lane on Bedford Ave that was recently sandblasted away.

One of the controversies about this is that the lanes were possibly removed at the request of the Hasidic community living in the area and who may have taken issue with the (type or lack of) garments being worn by (female) cyclists. It doesn’t help that the same NYPost article says “[a] source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month’s election.”

Really? This is what our safety is weighed against?

Show ’em how it’s done, people:

Little information is available at this time. My condolences to the victims. Hopefully the driver turns themself in. Some comments from the news threads:

I was talking to a friend of mine on Wednesday afternoon about the lack of space for bikers. This is the third death that I know of on that stretch of Montague Road since 1988.

[…] 15 years ago I felt safe, but now that every one is going 50 in 35 while texting and sipping their coffee, its no longer a good place for bikes, no matter how much the laws say bike have just as much right to be on the roads along side of cars and trucks. […]

I have some sad stories to share, but I think they are relevant with the current bike-car-pedestrian unfriendliness currently abuzz in the Boston area.

The first is a TreeHugger article which spreads the story of an alleged hit-and-run driver who killed a cyclist, then tried to trade his car in as part of the Cash for Clunkers program as an attempt to get rid of the evidence. An astute dealer didn’t buy Timothy Kissida’s tale that he had hit a javalina (a medium sized, pig-looking animal) and decided to follow up with a call to the police. The make, model, color, and area of damage to the car was all consistent with the hit-and-run the night before.

Next are a few articles about a Marshfield man who was struck and killed yesterday. Another boston.com article also mentions a cyclist hit in Lowell. I have not been able to find any information on the current state of the Lowell-area, I hope he does not succumb and he makes a complete recovery.

My condolences to the families of 52-year-old Charles Waldrop and 69-year-old Charles L. Campbell; my thoughts go out to the 41-year-old man struck in Lowell.

Update, August 21st:
More sad news folks, the cyclist from Lowell succumbed to his injuries. More info here.

I got a good chuckle from this music video, it’s not the catchiest tune but it’s all in good humor:

Hooray, another weekend roundup!
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This is a very sad story [CityNews].
Via TreeHugger.

Road rage is an epidemic. It is pervasive and spreading.

Car culture (in it’s broadest sense, anyone who drives regularly) was innocent enough at first; it was meant to grow the economy. Society’s focus has changed and hardened, though, due to myriad reasons. This change permutes into all aspects of society. The end result is that car culture today doesn’t resemble that of yester-year’s. It’s more aggressive, hostile, and irresponsible.

(Let’s not kid ourselves, the same can be said of bicycle culture.)

Stories like this highlight the fact that people have gotten too used to getting their way and have forgotten the civil practice of brokering a compromise. People in their anger will use their cars in a fight. Cars are two-ton weapons. Human beings, being fragile in comparison, will lose in a fight with them every time.

This story’s a little old, I couldn’t find any updates to see what became of the cyclist, or the driver.

Two weekends ago Sunday I attempted a ~60 mile ride: go to and take roughings of all of the Museum of Science’s Community Solar System planet kiosks (including Pluto the Plutoid.)

I should have known something was up when the MoS updated  their website and no longer offered for download the “passport,” nor made available the pages detailing the Community Solar System project at all.

But that didn’t deter me! I downloaded that passport file weeks ago, and I had worked diligently on finding somewhat feasible biking routes (more on that in a bit.) I forged ahead – the ride would not be thwarted just because the new website doesn’t have the Community Solar System project listed anymore!

Well, here is what I started with: Pluto, at the platform of the Riverside T Stop, Green D Line.

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I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this before, it’s brilliant – a Bicycle Lift system in Norway.

I can sure think of a few places where something like this would have been appealing. In this video it looks like it might be coin-operated.